


The Talk

by Redrikki



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-08-08 10:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16427861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Rayla and Callum finally talk about what happened the night of the assassination.





	The Talk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elemental](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elemental/gifts).



Rayla had already been up for a while when Callum had his nightmare. She knew she’d pay for it later, but, well, Moonshadow elf. How could she hope to sleep under a moon this bright? They’d been stopping more lately during the day for Zym’s sake. Maybe she could take a quick nap then, assuming another crazy human didn’t show up to kill her.

Callum woke up gasping. His eyes darted wildly around their little clearing. Far from being comforted by her presence, his breathing sped up when he spotted Rayla perched on her rock. It wasn’t until he caught sight of Ezran curled up safe asleep around Zym that he started to calm down. He pulled his knees up and pressed his forehead against them.

“Are you alright?” Rayla jumped lightly down beside him. He'd known she was there, but he flinched all the same. “Want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine,” Callum said, prying his head from his knees to flash her a brittle smile. “Nothing to talk about.”

Rayla raised a skeptical eyebrow. He looked a hairsbreadth from bursting into tears. He was about as far from fine as she’d ever seen him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a terrible liar?”

He shot her an angry look. “Our dad’s dead, isn’t he,” he said flatly. It wasn’t a question.

“What?! No. That’s crazy talk. You’re talking crazy,” Rayla said, painfully aware of just how terrible she was at lying.

“You had bindings on both arms when we met, Rayla,” he reminded her. “I’m not an idiot.”

She should have known he would have remembered that with his artist’s eye. There was no point in denying it now. Rayla pulled up her knees and resisted the urge to hide her face in them.

“Does Ezran know?” she asked in a pained whisper. She couldn’t bring herself to be sorry that the man responsible for the dragon king’s murder was dead, but she couldn’t bear to think about what it would do to her friend.

Callum shook his head. “I didn’t know how to tell him.”

Good. Rayla’s shoulder’s slumped with relief. That was good. The only way to end this whole stupid war was to have the human princes deliver the dragon prince to his mother. She couldn’t trust them to go through with it if they knew the elves were responsible for their father’s death on the dragon queen’s order. She couldn’t trust them to like her either.

Except Callum had, on both counts. “You knew,” Rayla realized. “The entire time. You knew!”

He was silent for a long moment. “I was in the tower. When they came.” Callum stared off into the middle distance as he talked. His voice sounded far away, like he was still back there. Watching. “I saw them kill—” he swallowed hard. “I fell over guards’ bodies, running down the stairs. There were more people there than just our dad. Soren, Vir—” He broke off, as if afraid to say the name. “There were people there I grew up with and I don’t know if any of them are still alive.”

Rayla looked away. She’d been so caught up with everything, the plan, her binding, their hunter, and the very real possibility that she would lose her arm, that she hadn’t really thought about that night from Callum’s perspective. Maybe she hadn’t really wanted to. 

“In a way, I’m in the same boat,” she said quietly. It was torture, she knew, living on the knife’s edge between hope and despair. Having to plaster on a cheery smile every day just made it worse. “I don’t know if any of my team survived and it’s all my fault!”

“It’s not your fault,” Callum said tiredly, but he didn't know the whole story. Rayla opened her mouth to protest, but he kept right on going. “Even if you’d finished your mission, none of you would have made it out of Katolis alive.”

Rayla looked at him sharply. He probably had a point. They’d made it into the country without much trouble, but they’d had the element of surprise then. It was bad enough having that one human on their trail. If they’d succeeding in killing both the crown prince and king, the whole country would have turned out to hunt them. If she had killed Ezran, Callum would have never stopped hunting them, assuming she hadn’t fallen for his ruse and killed him first. She shuttered to think about it.

“There’s a cheery thought,” she muttered, hugging her raised knees. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Rayla hadn’t killed anyone and she’d never been more grateful for that. “What do we do now?”

Ezran looked so sweet and innocent sleeping there, but she’d tell him the truth in a heartbeat if Callum said to. The boy would never forgive her, but she knew him well enough now to trust that he’d see the mission through. 

Callum yawned hugely, rubbing his eyes. “We go to sleep,” he said, “and figure it out in the morning.” He laid back down, pulling his sketch book closer to use as a pillow. 

Rayla watched him for a long moment, listening as his breathing slowed into quiet snores. She looked from him to the too bright moon and back again. Then she curled up beside him and followed him down into dreaming.

****

“Morning!” Ezran chirped as Zym started to lick her face with a surprisingly coarse tongue.

Rayla groaned and gently pushed the little dragon away. She wished she had a bed she could crawl back into. The sun was just starting to peak over the treetops and her eyes felt like they had been stuck shut with glue. Callum stirred listlessly beside her. 

“Did you sleep well?” Ezran asked. He, of course, looked fresh as a daisy. She was only fifteen, but somehow that made her feel old. Maybe it was the too hard ground, or maybe it was the weight of responsibility.

Now was the time to tell him. This was the moment where she could break his heart and lose his trust in one fell swoop. Rayla and Callum exchanged a look and plastered on simultaneous smiles. 

“Slept great,” she lied. The truth could wait for tomorrow.


End file.
